into sobs. Leaping, he held her to his body and they tumbled over the flames and to the ground. She screamed again, as the impact couldn’t have been easy, and now he rolled with her on the ground to put out any fire that may have ignited clothing.
He spat gravel and clambered away from the fire. Dragging the pole with the woman still tied to it away from the pyre, he hastily worked at the ropes about her hands and ankles and was relieved when she tried to help him. “You okay? What’s up with that bit of nasty?”
She coughed and heaved, likely from smoke inhalation. “Get me out of here.”
“You burned?”
“Don’t … think so.”
He lifted her in his arms, a frail, broken bird, and she melted against him. Her pale hair and clothing were as hot as her flesh, but all he saw on her were dirt smudges, no telltale burns or red welts.
Striding past the man on the ground, who had roused and was on all fours, Ridge kicked him squarely in the jaw, dropping him flat.
“You want me to take care of him permanently?” he asked the woman shivering in his arms.
“No, just … take me away from here. Anywhere. I …” Her lashes fluttered and her head bobbled, nearing a faint. “Goddess, I need a drink.”
Ridge found a cheesy bar on the older part of the Las Vegas strip decorated in more pink and purple neon than most of the skeevy dives he’d passed. The woman downed a vodka straight in the time it took for him to return from the men’s room. She allowed him to wipe off the soot blackening her face with a wet paper towel, and then ordered another round.
Two hours later they were both so drunk, Ridge kept thinking he should have gotten her name when she had been sober enough to recall it. But when the question reached the tip of his tongue, she tilted another drink down his throat, and the two laughed over their horrible adventure escaping the flames.
“I love you,” she slurred. “You big, hunky man, you. You saved my life.”
“I did.” He laid his head on her shoulder and toyed with the reddish-blond hair that smelled smoky and a little like coconuts. Burnt coconuts, actually. “You’re soft.”
“You’re sexy.”
“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met,” he said on a contented sigh.
“Sexiest guy, hands down.”
“Let’s get married.”
“By Elvis!”
She lifted what may have been her tenth—or thirteenth—vodka to salute, and Ridge swept his arm to clink his glass against hers, but missed, his arm swinging around and splashing the trio of strippers sitting in the next booth.
Half an hour later, Elvis pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Addison happily married. To the tune of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding,” the groom lifted his smoke-smudged bride into his arms and walked down the short red-carpeted aisle and right into the red-and-black-striped wall behind the electric organ.
As the couple tumbled about in a tangle of limbs and fits of giggles, Elvis—the rhinestone-spangled leisure suit version—bent over them and pointed out the cheap stained-glass window to the hotel across the street. “Because I’d hate to see either of you behind the wheel right now.”
They saluted the King of Rock and staggered across the street. It took three tries to actually make it to the other side without ending up back at the Viva Las Vegas chapel.
Room 12 had probably seen some crazy things during the motel’s sixty-year run, but this night it would see the weirdest.
Clothing was torn away. Laughter accompanied sensual moans and sudden giggles. They didn’t kiss much. Too difficult to get the aim right with their blurry brains.
Ridge, while in his cups, couldn’t stop touching his sexy new wife everywhere. Her skin felt softer than anything he’d known. Thank heavens, she hadn’t been burned. Her hair, tangled and dirty, and smelling like a burnt coconut, appealed as no woman’s ever had.
Despite his inebriation, something deep inside him growled in a knowing way. Mine. Meant for me.
He ignored the growl—to his detriment—and managed to find his way between her slender, smooth legs. Remarkably, his cock was hard, which only proved how much she turned him on, even two sheets to the wind. Her fingers grasping greedily at his thick, muscled arms, she let out a long, delicious moan as he fit himself inside her.
For one perfect moment, he grew sober and fell into the heavenly sanctuary of her body.
This is where you belong.
“Oh, Ridge,” she moaned. He’d told her his name after Elvis had prompted him. What was hers? Something like Gail or Abby. “Yes!” Her body bucked beneath his, and he chased the climax that was so close to exploding in his loins.
That inner growl he had ignored? Well, now it turned into a real growl. He let out a low and wanting howl that vibrated in his bones. Even drunk, he knew this was Not A Good Thing.
Or rather, Just Plain Bad Timing.
Thrusting quickly, Ridge ignored the shift in his bones and the stretch of skin that prickled with fur. He was almost there. Just a few more thrusts …
Climax shuddered through his body—which was now halfway between man and beast.
He lost hold on the woman’s narrow shoulders and his talons cut into the mattress. His shoulders stretched and the bones reshaped. Fur pushed through his pores. His torso lengthened. Paws slipped off the bed.
Bloodshot blue eyes flashed open and his pretty new wife gaped. That look was one hundred percent sober. Without pause, she scrambled onto her elbows, hauled up her leg and kicked Ridge’s furred chest. He stumbled backward and off the creaky old bed, his paws slapping the wall.
He growled, revealing a maw of meat-tearing teeth.
“What the hell?” His wife huffed and gasped, clasping a hand to her bare and oh-so-gorgeous breasts. Then she angled those wicked blue eyes on him and pointed a finger. “Ignis!”
The rusted tin lamp on the nightstand flickered out. The electrical outlet, which was missing an outlet plate, sparked and smoked. The television shot out sparks from behind the tube, and the LED clock on the nightstand exploded in a stunning shower of white sparks.
Ridge’s werewolf yowled as some kind of weird electricity hit him in the gut, burrowing deep through his skin and burning his very organs. All he could think was magic. He’d been struck by magic. The woman was a witch! Which went a long way in explaining why she’d been tied to a stake and surrounded by fire—the only way to kill a witch. She and the bastard flinging fire from his fingers were both witches. What had he interrupted?
The burn in his gut flared a sizzling path to his loins. The magic still cut through him. Ridge gripped his penis protectively. His muscles clenched and he let out a desperate howl that was abruptly cut off.
As his werewolf collapsed, his wolf-shaped head landing on the end of the bed, Ridge had one thought: werewolves should never mess with witches.
